Overview

Works Applications Co., Ltd. is an ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) package vendor in Japan, headquartered in Tokyo. As a leader in the ERP market, the company develops leading edge solutions for corporate business functions such as accounting, personnel, and retail. Leading solutions delivered by Works Applications include COMPANY and AI WORKS, which are deployed in approximately 1,300 corporate groups. AI WORKS is the world’s first*1 AI-infused ERP system that incorporates AI and big data. AI WORKS analyzes and learns from accumulated operational log data to support optimized and automated operations. “Our strength of being the number one package vendor is due to the enormous volume of logs that we collect. Effective application of these logs can revolutionize the business of our customers. Our company’s mission is to realize a four-day working week using AI WORKS,” said Shunsuke Shiina, Works Applications.

*1 Source: Works Applications’ statements

Challenges

AI WORKS uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Docker, a container virtualization technology as leading platforms. “Using Docker makes it really simple to handle applications by enabling us to easily deploy the applications we develop in test and production environments. We are able to speed up the service enhancement cycle, including the release of new functions to support the latest needs of customers and increasing the quality of service. This approach allows us to increase the benefits of using a cloud service for customers,” says Shiina. AI WORKS holds a huge volume of business and personal information of customer companies, including salary calculations, expense calculations, arrival and departure times for work, as well as skill information such as employee career histories and qualifications. “As AI WORKS is built on an extremely secure and robust architecture by using security-focused network design and a range of other AWS services, it has an extremely secure and robust architecture. However, to meet the strict security requirements of customers, we felt that it was essential to be absolutely sure of security measures in order to cope with incidents such as internal fraud,” said Shiina. AI WORKS security also required a solution that was compatible with both AWS and recently adopted Docker without negating the benefits that they offer.

Why Trend Micro

Works Applications adopted Trend Micro™ Deep Security™ to fulfill its security requirements. “Deep Security is compatible with Docker and Kubernetes, a container cluster management tool. Although the network of AI WORKS is very complex, it can be managed with one manager. We are also highly impressed with the fact that the functions we consider essential for server protection are found in an all-in-one solution, allowing for simple deployment and operation,” said Shiina. Works Applications also rates Deep Security highly because of its compatibility with cloud environments. “In addition to the ability to establish Intrusion Prevention (IPS/IDS) on individual instances, Deep Security offers a wealth of functions integrated with AWS. We are able to automate environment construction and optimize operations by leveraging the functionalities offered by Deep Security. In addition, the running costs for the overall cloud environment are kept low because it is compatible with the open source database Postgre SQL,” said Shiina. Works Applications has been using Deep Security with “COMPANY on Cloud Managed Service” which uses AWS for many years. The fact that it could effectively apply the operating know-how that it has gained also supported the adoption.

"Trend Micro is extremely quick to support new technologies, and successfully strengthened the security of our service platform, which uses Docker and Kubernetes. "

Solution

Works Applications is currently using Deep Security on approximately 6,000 instances within AI WORKS development, test, and production environments on the AWS virtualization server service Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It utilizes IPS/IDS functions and anti-malware functions to protect their EC2 instances.

Benefits

When handling a huge environment with 6,000 instances, there will always be limits on what can be handled by human operation alone. With Deep Security, the organization was able to offer automation and optimization of their operations. “The process for launching new instances is almost completely automated, which includes installing, configuring and activating a Deep Security agent. By integrating the AWS management console with the Deep Security management screen using AWS Cloud Connector, all instances on the relevant account are listed. This makes it possible to notice unmanaged instances immediately. In addition, events detected by Deep Security are incorporated into an in-house Redmine via Amazon SNS, which serves to dramatically optimize operation,” said Shiina. Deep Security has also proven useful for security checks during development. “We actively adopt new technologies for AI WORKS, so the software that we use changes daily. Using the search function with Deep Security’s recommended scans enables us to instantly check for vulnerabilities in the applications that we develop, which helps to improve the quality of our services,” said Shiina.

What's Next

Now that it has deployed Deep Security and successfully enhanced the security of AI WORKS, Works Applications is looking to promote its use of integrity monitoring functions. “We want to use logs for integrity monitoring for our SOC (security operations center). We also expect to provide services to customers at even higher levels of security by ensuring that there haven’t been any suspicious changes after we release applications in production environments,” reveals Shiina. The company is considering the adoption of a variety of new technologies in the future, including the introduction of serverless technologies. Trend Micro strives to support the business of Works Applications by offering new technical capabilities while continuing to offer timely support. PRODUCT DETAILS Visit the following website for details.